Energy, Latvia, Real Estate

Court procedures to recover over LVL 200,000 have been started already, informed LETA Maju Serviss KSA Chairperson of the Board Baiba Plavina.

As reported, Rigas siltums cut off hot water supply for 49 apartment buildings on September 11 due to overdue payments, 37 of which were managed by Maju Serviss KSA. As a result, over 6,000 Rigans are without hot water.

Plavina informed that after the hot water was cut off, several debtors started to settle payments. Currently the payments have already been settled for three houses, therefore heat supply for them will be resumed later today, Chairman of the Board at Rigas Siltums Aris Zigurs confirmed.

"We encourage people to settle payments and we will seek solutions. However, the people's purchasing capacity has lessened and the situation will become even worse after utility rates are raised in October," Plavina pointed out.

Zigurs explained that Maju serviss KSA has already previously struggled with settling payments on time. "We are not happy to be in this situation, however, we have to follow the conditions of the contract as the payments cannot be delayed forever. Operating with almost no profit, we are "living on the edge" – any losses or delayed payments strongly affect our budget," Zigurs said.

Zigurs admitted that part of the problem is that Rigas Siltums cannot supply the heat to individual apartments; it guarantees supply to the building itself. He admitted that after restructuring the system, it could become possible to serve customers individually, but at the moment Rigas Siltums only has contracts with the managers of houses and apartment blocks.

Zigurs admitted that the municipality will play a significant role in conflicts of such type when it allocates funding for housing benefits.

As reported, from October 15, Rigas siltums will increase central heating tariffs by an average of 28.5%.

With this, the new tariff will be LVL 45.57 per megawatt/hour.